Essay on Child Labor in English for CLass 5 to 12 Students

Childhood is the time for children to attend school to learn, get educated, play, to grow strong and confident with the love and support of their family, teachers, and friends. But unfortunately, some children around the world are not able to do what most of the children are doing, because they are being labored. Child labor is one of the big problems faced by the world. Children are forced to work to earn their living. Hence we have written this essay on child labor in English to give you more information about the issue.

In this article, we have given you an essay on child labor in English. Information such as what is the definition of child labor, it’s history, causes, effects, child labor in India, and what are the ways, solutions we can implement to reduce and stop the child labor. This information will help you while writing an essay on child labor or while preparing a speech on child labor. So, let’s start.

Essay on Child Labor in English for CLass 5 to 12 Students

Introduction

Child labor is different from child work in the sense that in the latter the work is done in order to expose the child to more application-oriented learning while child labor involves children being forced to work as a laborer. Child labor is not just assisting parents and learning in the process, it is the compulsory enrollment to obtain output for some other agent. Child labor is the economic exploitation of the children who are barred from having a carefree childhood and forced to perform economic duties as an adult.

History of Child Labor

Child labor dates back to history even before the dawn of the Industrial Revolution. In the feudal economic era, while most concentrated on purely agricultural domains, the concept of childhood was not well developed. It was characterized by children being the answer to labor force increase to work on fields along with their parents. During Industrial Revolution too, children were one of the most profitable labor force owing to the fact that they could be taught easily, it was easier to manage them and most essentially they could be recruited for far lower wage structure.

Economic struggles forced children to take up labor work at an early age and especially in the 19th century England the work conditions were too hazardous. On account of the complete absence of any checks on the conduct of the employers on the enforcement of child labor, there used to be massive exploitation which was the accepted norm.

In India, child labor as it is understood in the modern form came along with the British. During the colonial era, Britishers introduced the bonded child labor concept. Under this, the creditor would give huge loans to a family and make them forever indebted to it in terms of paying out the mortgage amount. Mostly the poor families were forced to send their child to work in factories as British factories would exploit children making them work for outstretched hours of work and often keeping them under ‘bond’ of slavery. Such workers also supplemented often as domestic help and therefore never got the opportunity for education or lifting themselves out of an impoverished economic situation.

Child labor was essentially attached to specific areas of industry. This included the glass industry, garment industry, and the textile industry. Child labor worked more as families saw it as an opportunity to generate income from every available source. If the child would be engaged in something like garment work from home, it allowed other family members to use them as income and household duty fulfilling agent.

Causes of Child Labor

The causes of child labor primarily emanate from the following factors

Poverty

Most families with a history of child laborers in them, happen to belong to the lower or lowest economic group people. More often than not, childhood has no place amidst dire survival needs and parents only look up to the income-generating capacity of children once they grow up. Essay on Poverty in India Speech, Article

Quality of Schools and Education standards

Often it so happens that the schools where low income or families of child laborers might get a chance to study, do not have adequate teaching capacity. Infrastructure and teacher wise the schools lagging behind forces students to drop out. Importance of Education Essay and Speech

Viewing girls as a burden or possible labor

Girls more than boys are pressurized in several parts of the world to take up labor force at a much earlier age. This is because girls are often viewed as not worthy of receiving education and instead they are introduced in the labor force so that they do not remain in the family for free. Women Empowerment Essay, Speech, and Article

Schooling is nonprofitable

On account of the prevalent notion of poverty and extreme economic hardships, the benefit of education is not appreciated by families who encourage child labor. For them, school is an opportunity for work lost. Under the same impression, such families cause a maximum number of early dropouts in school as the value of education, systematic learning is of no use vis a vis a daily wage of the child.

Inability to feed a child

On account of low awareness in both family planning and family managing skills, the families often run out of resources to feed or sustain a child beyond an age. For them, it is then a far better option if the child works for their own meal and hence can survive.

Effects of Child Labor

The corrupt malpractice of child labor leaves some profound consequences if not addressed at the right moment. Child labor often produces long-term behavioral and mental troubles which can affect an adult’s mind forever. Often due to poor working conditions, there emerges problem of eyesight, burning and scaling down of skin.

Given that most child laborers hail from low-income families, adequate long-term treatment to does not come handy every time. For those working in bidi, diamond cutting, embroidery industry, the possibility of getting hurt on a regular basis is far higher.

Girl child laborers are always at a higher risk of ill effects given that more often girls are subject to sexual forcing and incidents of rape and molestation is highly common especially for those engaged in unorganized or unregistered sectors.

Rescued children from child labor factories often complain about severe mental trauma and due to lack of education, they find few avenues to utilize their lives. As a result, they are caught in a vicious circle of poverty and find little or no way to come out of it.

Solutions To End Child Labor

The International Labor Organization or ILO has prescribed a thorough action blueprint specifically for companies to adhere to in order to prevent child labor incidents. Under it, there are orders to specifically stop engaging children in any form of work, to take away already engaged children or minors from any hazardous work and also for the higher age group of minors allowed to work, their work hours be reduced.

In India too there exists a system of government safeguards and charitable and nonprofit organizational nexus in order to prevent incidents of child labor. However, no judicial or legal process would have any bearing unless some steps are taken up with the social conscience.

Efforts to Reduce Poverty

Given the fact that poverty forms the chief reason for child labor, it is important to address the issue of poverty in order to eliminate child labor in the long run. With systems of public ration, midday meal and incentivizing education with family support are steps by which poverty can be addressed.

Administrative Vigilance against child labor

While laws are in place in order to terminate or rehabilitate child labor, often at decentralized levels, the implementing administrative structure lacks resource and efficiency to protect child rights and prevent institutional practice to employ children. Vigilance must be stronger and of course, backed by definite police or necessary authority’s force.

Role of the Consumer

As consumers, each one of us has a role to prevent child labor. One should look into product labels and try and not use products which does not declare itself child labor free. Sweatshop products are best avoided as they tend to employ more children.

Women education

Educating a mother goes a long way in preventing instances of child labor. Often a mother who has educated herself would better realize the value of education and the problems in case a child does not remain educated and early entry into the labor force. To start from home, this step is one of the most significant in its possible impact.

Child Labor in India

The problem of child labor in India is much problematic. More so, as the Government of India is yet to ratify the International Labor Organization’s protocol of the Minimum Age Convention of 1973 that stipulates the ground for minor employment across the world. According to the 2011 census, there are 33 million child laborers across India, in the age bracket of 5- 18 while in the age group of 5-14 there are close to over 10 million child laborers.

Data and statistics revealing a shocking truth about the inevitability of child labor in India, the primary mindset behind such tragic fact emanate from poverty and dependency upon human labor force at most agrarian and industrial levels. Although the system of bonded labor was prohibited post-British Rule under the Bonded Labor System Prosecution Act 1976, which included the prohibition of bonded child labor as well, yet in 1996 a surprise raid at Tamil Nadu, revealed close to 53 bonded child laborers. In most cases, despite cracking down on such cases, the alleged perpetrators are often not prosecuted under the given act.

Mostly, in India due to the large-scale prevalence of poverty and low living standards, that children are better off in school than work is mostly not believed by parents who belong to the lowest economic rungs. Another phenomenon at work is the disbursal of the loan by factories at a high rate to families often make them end up with a huge burden of loan. For repayment of same, the factories oblige them to work, often with low or no wage and given children’s basic payment is not guaranteed and enforced hence there exists the trend of employing children.

Based on a report, the government in 2016, amended the child labor laws to allow children below 14 years to work in the family business and entertainment areas so as to better their exposure to real-life dynamics of the professional field later in life. The states with the largest number of child laborers are Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, and Rajasthan. On an average over 40 percent of children are employed across sectors like leather, zari and hotel industries across the country.

Given the fact that India’s rural base is mostly agrarian in character, child labor instances are higher in it given that they enter into agricultural practices which require low skill and high impact labor mostly, at a much early stage. Child labor is one of the chief reasons for disease vulnerability and malnutrition in India.

Early exposure to long working hours, work that does not involve utilization of mental faculties and extremely low wage with hard working conditions forcing children to skip meals regularly, promotes overall underdevelopment in children. As a result of which, they are often unable to concentrate well in whatever learning they are engaged in parallel.

In India, given the mindset of parents are often ruled on customary premises, they think it is alright to engage children in labor as their parents did the same for them. However, changing mindset and offering more time for education and learning have been taken up by several NGO’s and organizations which have made slow progress in reducing child labor by 2 percent each year.

Actions and Campaigns against Child Labor: The legal route to End Child Labour

The International Labor organization or the ILO has 23 conventions that govern any engagement of children in labor of any kind. The Minimum Age Convention states that for hazardous work the age be 18, for the light it is 13 and for anything else, it is 15. The UN Convention on the Rights of Child states that anyone below 18 should be enjoying the rights of child status.

Under such an assumption, it sets forth a stronger and positive directive of children being treated with dignity and help them have the privilege of education and other benefits. The ILO Worst Form of Child Labor convention stipulates the complete prohibition of barbarous child labor forms such as slavery, prostitution, and trafficking.

In India, the Child Labor Regulation and Prevention Act was constituted in 1987 and a National Policy on Child Labor was formulated in 1987 to enable systematic rehabilitation of children involved in hazardous industries and labor.

Besides, there are several NGO’s both global and country-specific that works dedicatedly towards the eradication of child labor. Child Rights and You (CRY), International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labor working with several host organizations in specific countries are some of the global organizations against child labor.

In India, Childline India, Bachpan Andolan, Save the Children are the leading organizations that actively work at grassroots levels to eliminate the malaise called child labor.

Conclusion

The practice of child labor no matter how recurrent will continue to haunt the society until it is terminated from the root. Child labor not only bars children from being effectively educated but also causes severe physical deformities. On account of being exposed to harsh conditions early, tender body parts are often seriously injured. One should always be aware of and restrict the employment of children of any age in labor work meant for adults.

Short Essay on Child Labour Speech in English

Children are God’s creation. The age between 4-15 years calls as children. But when these children are forced to do work like adults do that can affect their mental, physical and social development as well then is known as child labor. We see in many restaurants, tea stalls children do work like cleaning table, serving food to people, sweeping in some industries like brick industry, etc.

Child labor is still a serious issue in many countries. There are 64 countries highest in child labor some of them are Somalia, Pakistan, Zimbabwe, Afganistan, Nigeria. Around 350 billion children are affected by child labor out of 350 billion, 8 billion children are worst child labor. They are forced to do prostitution, child pornography, etc.

Two kinds of work minors do, first, Work that is easy to do and it is acceptable while getting an education and another is the work that affects child’s physical development where they have to work for long hours.

The main reason for child labor is poverty and inadequate education. Poverty is the main reason that has increased child labor issue. Lack of food and money can make a man to do any kind of work at any age. UNICEF reported that child labor is high in rural areas. Because of the unavailability of schools and teachers children tend to be child labor.

Even if there are schools either schools are located at far distance or fees of schools is not affordable so many parents stop their child from getting an education and force them to work somewhere. As compared to girls, boys are more likely to be forced into child labor.

UNICEF(United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund) found that the number of girl child labor is more than boy child labor in a rural area. When a girl is born their parents literally sell her to some person and get money in return generally these girls are then work in prostitution.

Increasing child labor is stated as a serious issue in terms of economic welfare. If the children work they don’t get an opportunity to develop physically, mentally and socially as well. They will remain uneducated and level of illiteracy will increase.

There are many non-governmental organizations like Bachpan Bachao Andolan, Child Fund, etc who are taking initiative against child labor. And helping India to destroy child labor issues. And as per the analysis by non-governmental organization CRY(Children’s Right and You), child labor has been decreasing by 2.2% from 2001-2011. Which is indeed a good thing for India.

We have many people around who speaks about child labor, read about child labor and write articles regarding it. But in actual these are the only people responsible for child labor directly or indirectly. Don’t just observe but take an action against it wherever you see children being harassed.

Tips for the Essay on Child Labour in English

Essay writing is a fun thing if you know what you are doing. Essay writing can be done learned in practice. Here in this section, we have given you some tips about writing an essay on child labor. These tips will help you to write the best essay on child labor in English. So, let’s see them.

Writing the best essay on a particular topic needs a lot of knowledge about that topic. So while writing an essay on child labor make sure you have enough information about the topic.

There are various types of essay writing such as descriptive essay, persuasive essay, expository essay, etc. So before starting to write your essay, determine what type of essay you want to write.

Essays are made of a particular structure and that is the beginning of the essay with the introduction statement, followed by the paragraphs of an information body and ending the essay with a conclusion. Follow this structure while writing your essay on child labor.

Make sure the information in your essay is authentic and credible.

Write the updated numbers and statistics about the topic.

Keep your handwriting and essay neat and clean.

Tips for the Speech on Child Labour

Not a single speaker is born with the talent for delivering awesome speeches. It takes years of practice and commitment to be able to deliver a speech that can win the hearts of people. The art of rocking an awesome speech can be learned through practice. Yes. Here are some tips that will help you to boost up your speech game. These tips will also help you with your speech on child labor. So, let’s see them.

Confidence is the key to a successful speech. Being confident enough to stand in front of hundreds of people and deliver a speech needs a lot of practice. so start small and eventually go big. Start with smaller speech competitions in your class, school, etc. and later move on to the bigger speech competitions.

If you have a stage fear then first try to deliver a speech in front of a smaller audience such as your friends and family member. If you are going to deliver a speech for the first time then this will give you the ideas of how it feels to deliver a speech to the people.

Walk confidently to the podium when your name is announced to deliver the speech.

Take a deep breath, greet everyone, introduce yourself and then start your speech.

Be loud enough to be audible to the whole audience.

Don’t mug up the things understand it and then speak about it.

Avoid mumbling and make less use of fillers.

Your gestures can convey your emotions in the right way.

Maintain eye contact with the audience.

Make your speech interactive by asking questions to the audience or asking their opinion.

I hope you find this article helpful. If yes then please Rate the article and leave a comment in the comment section below. 🙂

About the author

Ajay Chavan

Hey guys! I am Ajay Chavan, a small town guy walking down the path to my dream. A hell-bent person who never gives up.
I love to write about stuff that makes a difference in someone's life.
And Hey! I am also the Co-Founder and COO of TeenAtHeart.